NC: largest county - Mecklenburg - approves domestic partner benefits for workers

[ccharles000]

CHARLOTTE — The Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners split along party lines at their meeting Dec. 15, approving domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples 6-3. The county joins six other local North Carolina governments offering similar benefits.

Several members of the public spoke on the domestic partner plan prior to the board’s vote. Those opposed cited moral reasons for opposing the plan.

“I’m from the old school and I know what is right and I know what is wrong,” citizen Jason Colley said. “I know what is good and I know what is bad. I do not wish my taxes to go to something of this nature. It seems like to me the minorities always get their way in whatever minority class it may be. I thought we were governed by majority rule. It doesn’t seem that way.”

African-American, Democratic Commissioner George Dunlap took exception to Colley’s remarks. “The majority hasn’t always been right,” he said.

Owen Sutkowski, a 2009 Democratic primary challenger to incumbent Charlotte City Councilwoman Patsy Kinsey, told commissioners it was “common sense” to provide “equitable access to benefits to all employees.”

http://www.q-notes.com/4607/mecklenburg-commissioners-approve-dp-benefits/

[beyurslf]

1. If we were goverened by majority rule, we would have had a health bill months

ago since 80% of the public and at least 55% of the Senate approve of it.

[corpseratemedia]

2. and Bill James (one of the commissioners) is human garbage

he's a deeply racist slob (he's homophobic but this comes out of his racism) who didn't have enough guts to say this aloud...he brutally whispered it to another commissioner Velma Leake after she talked about her son's passing..

http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11684780#WNPoll90813

sinp<....It all started after Leake made an impassioned speech about her son dying of AIDS.

"A son that I birthed and died of AIDS and I did not know that... in 2010 I would be sitting here... to defend his lifestyle," Leake said.

After that revelation, tempers flared when James leaned over and whispered something to Leake about her late son and it was caught on the microphone.

Here is James' comment and Leake's response.

James: "Your son was a homo, really?"

Leake: "I'm going to hit you, don't talk about my son that way."

It may be hard to hear on tape, but after reviewing the tape several times, James used a term that many consider offensive to gays.

Again, this provocative exchange occurred in the open public meeting just before the commissioners voted to approve the policy.

On Wednesday, WBTV News requested an interview from James and in his email response, he did not apologize for the comment he made Tuesday night.

In his statement, James said that Leake was "a religious hypocrite" who "used her son's ‘lifestyle' and his death from HIV-AIDS to justify voting for benefits to allow individuals to use tax dollars to engage in the same behavior that resulted in her son's death."

He also said "it is akin to someone whose son is an alcoholic and died from the disease, using his death from drinking as justification to have the taxpayers pay for more booze." (Read James' full statement.)

Leake told us she expects an apology and the community deserves one, as well. "To literally say what he said was unacceptable," said Leake.

"I grieved because of it," she said...>snip

[ccharles000]

3. kick